Distance Restraints from Crosslinking Mass Spectrometry: Mining a Molecular Dynamics Simulation Database to Evaluate Lysine-Lysine Distances
Integrative structural biology models the structures of protein complexes that are intractable by classical structural methods (because of extreme size, dynamics, or heterogeneity) by combining computational structural modeling with data from experimental methods. One such method is chemical cross-linking mass spectrometry (XL-MS), in which cross-linked peptides, derived from a covalently cross-linked protein complex and identified by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, pinpoint protein residues close in three-dimensional space. The commonly used lysine-reactive N-hydroxysuccinimide ester reagents disuccinimidylsuberate (DSS) and bis(sulfosuccinimidyl)suberate (BS3) have a linker arm that is 11.4 Å long when fully extended. However, XL-MS studies on proteins of known structure frequently report cross-links that exceed this distance. Typically, a tolerance of ~3 Å is added to the theoretical maximum to account for this observation, with little justification for the value chosen. We used the Dynameomics database, a repository of high-quality molecular dynamics simulations of 807 proteins representative of all protein folds, to investigate the change in lysine-lysine distances resulting from native-state dynamics on the time-scale of tens of nanoseconds. We conclude that observed cross-links are consistent with a protein structure if the distance between cross-linked lysine Nζ atoms is less than the cross-linker length plus 11.3 Å. For DSS or BS3, this corresponds to a Cα to Cα distance of 30.4 Å. This analysis provides a theoretical basis for the widespread practice of adding a tolerance to the crosslinker length when comparing XL-MS results to structures, and indicates the appropriate values of an XLMS derived distance constraint to use in structural modeling.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States). Environmental Molecular Sciences Lab. (EMSL)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 1132671
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-97266; 42696; 400412000
- Journal Information:
- Protein Science, 23(6):747-759, Journal Name: Protein Science, 23(6):747-759
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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